Email search tools

I have long struggled with the deluge of email at work. In my crusade, I have tried everything from no organization (death by a thousand emails!) to having a million folders. I have now settled down to just letting it all accumulate whereever and searching for what I need. When Gmail was first introduced, I wasn't among its fans. Searching for email? Sounded like another nail had been created for the Google search hammer. I see the beauty of Gmail now. Even at work, where I use Outlook, my folders have boiled down to the single 'archive' folder that Gmail offers.

Lightening fast search is your friend if you get a lot of email. I used Lookout to search my emails in Outlook but eventually replaced it with Google Desktop. The latter's many gadgets and brand probably conned me into this shameful act. Google Desktop is fast, but is integration with Outlook is clearly not a priority for its makers. Every now and then I need to fish out some old email and attach it to another email that I'm composing. With Google Desktop I can quickly find that old email but there's no way to just drag it from the search window and drop it on to the email I'm composing. Instead, I have to manually find the older email in my Inbox and then attach it. This means sorting my Inbox first, or changing its view to include older emails - not fun with a massive mailbox.

So I bid Google Desktop a tearful adieu and installed Outlook 2007 and Windows Search since I heard the latter was fast. I've never been a fan of mindless Microsoft bashing, but this software makes me want to scream in agony every time I use it. It takes well over 30 seconds to search for any email. What's worse, Outlook often freezes while this is happening and you're pretty much blocked.

What's 30 seconds, you ask. I'm not being cantankerous; 30 seconds by themselves may not matter, but the distraction can be deadly. Before you know it you're looking at a bug report, thinking of some other to-do or your mind has wandered and the squandered seconds start stacking up. Concentration is such a hard-won trophy, why suffer a tool that impedes you?

For now, I'm back to Lookout. Lookout is fast and well integrated with Outlook. It's no longer supported since Microsoft bought it a few years ago and had the team work on Windows search instead. It works with older versions of Outlook and you can tweak it to work on Outlook 2007.